INDUSTRY UPDATE

US: HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA

Jim Austin

As I was finishing up the Magico A5 review for the July issue, corresponding with Magico CEO Alon Wolf as he reviewed the final proof, I was planning a post-vaccination trip with my wife to the SF Bay area, to spend some time in Stinson Beach, a favorite vacation spot for us for many years. I mentioned the trip to Wolf, and he suggested I stop by to hear the new Magico M9s.

At 80" tall, 40" deep, and 1000lb—plus another 100lb for the active external crossover and its power supply—the M9 is among the largest domestic loudspeakers in current production.

The speaker ships in two parts. The bass cabinet utilizes dual 15" bass drivers. The middle section—the bottom section of the top cabinet—holds a new diamond-coated beryllium tweeter and a 6" midrange driver. The top section holds two 11" mid/bass drivers. All five drivers feature Magico’s latest (eighth-generation) “Nano-Tec” cones with graphene/carbon-fiber skins on the inside and the outside and an aluminum honeycomb core in the middle.

The high/mids and bass sections are connected by an all-analog active crossover crossing over at 120Hz with 24dB/octave Linkwitz-Riley filters. Wolf told me that an active crossover was necessary to exploit the full potential of the dual 15" bass drivers. The active crossover was built to be versatile, with an open architecture, adjustable stepped attenuators, and discrete circuitry. It has its own external power supply that regenerates its own AC. A pair of M9s requires four channels of amplification.

The crossovers between the other drivers also employ Linkwitz-Riley filters—these passive, not active—with Magico’s usual elliptical symmetry.

The M9 cabinet is a two-piece,¹ swoopier, sexier, and of course much bigger version of the typical Magico M-series cabinet, combining aluminum and carbon fiber to create a structure that’s very stiff, due in part to internal aluminum bracing (which can be adjusted as it loosens over time), and in part to the extensive use of carbon fiber.

Sensitivity is 94dB, nominal impedance is 4 ohms, and the frequency response is specified as 18Hz–50kHz. To me the most intriguing specification is the power handling: 20–2000W.

How did it sound? Big, relaxed, and exquisite.

I don’t have a track list, but I knew the first track, “Clear,” from percussionist Marilyn Mazur’s album with Jan Garbarek, Elixir (ECM 1962; that’s the catalog number, not the year).

The imaging, in Magico’s big, seismically floating, well-engineered listening room, was ethereal.